No woman is forced to abort a pregnancy in this
country ... It must be stated as fact that no one is forced to submit
to an abortion, that the power of the state has not been used in a
coercive manner, and that Americans have not been forced or
propagandized into supporting that which offends their religious
beliefs or their moral convictions.

It is grossly unfair to deprive women of their
Constitutional right to abortion just because they can't pay for the
procedure. Since abortion is morally just the same as having a mole
excised or trimming one's toenails, those women who cannot afford this
basic medical care should have it provided to them by the government.

In any case, cutting off funding for abortions will
not decrease the number of abortions performed. The only result will
be that more women will die of back-alley butchery.

Introduction.

I simply do not believe that this country has the
responsibility to use our taxpayers' money to provide citizens, rich
or poor, with the means of aborting their unborn simply because the
child is unwanted ... simply as a convenience to those responsible for
them. Congress has no right to tax the American people to provide such
a convenience.

Senator John C. Stennis (D.-Miss.).[2]

It is really rather comical to listen to
pro-abortionists as they rave "Keep the government out of our
private affairs!," then demand that the same government pay for the
results of the most private of those 'private affairs,' abortion.

It is also very amusing to hear them say that
abortion is the moral equivalent of having a wart removed and that the
government must pay for abortions, and then explain why the government
doesn't pay for wart removals and other cosmetic surgery.

The fundamental justification used by pro-aborts
for funding is that abortion is just the same as any other medical
procedure in a moral sense therefore, since the government pays for
other medical procedures for poor people, it follows that taxpayers
should foot the bill for abortion as well.

Fallacies
in the Arguments for Funding.

The cliche we hear most often is, 'A woman has
the right to control her own body.' I agree. Let her exercise control
before she gets pregnant. But do not ask the taxpayers of America to
pay the price when there is a failure to exercise control by forcing
taxpayers to subsidize the ending of lives of unborn children as a
convenience to adult women.

Rep. Eldon Rudd (R.-Ariz.).[2]

Abortion as a 'Good.'

The constitutionality of state-funded abortions
fails on several levels of a rigorous analysis.

To begin with, the pro-abortionists who demand that
the State pay for abortions are making a basic fallacious assumption.
They cling to the philosophy that abortion is a 'good' that should be
paid for by the United States or individual state governments, since
what is available to the rich should be made available to everyone. This
gross assumption is, in and of itself, entirely false.

The rich have always gotten away with murder,
sometimes literally. For example, United States Senator Ted Kennedy
("champion of women's rights") killed Mary Jo Kopechne at
Chappaquiddick and got away scot-free. Does this mean that the
government should provide the means for the poor to escape prosecution
for murder, too?

Another example; in the 1940s and 1950s, rich
people in the East took advantage of Nevada's lax divorce laws by flying
there to reside for a week and obtain a quickie end to their marriages.
But the government didn't see fit to fly poor folks to Las Vegas to
enjoy the same 'privilege.'

During Prohibition, of course, the rich did not
suffer a crimp in their supply of liquor; in fact, many of them profited
from the illegal trade in alcohol. Yet the government did not see fit to
supply cheap wine to the poor, just because they could not enjoy illegal
liquor like the rich. Nor does the state provide clean, tested, and
relatively pure crack to poor people just because they can't afford it
(although it may be moving in this direction by providing clean
syringes).

Yet this type of indulgence is precisely what the
pro-aborts are demanding.

State's Obligations.

Even if it were generally accepted that abortion
were an ethical and proper surgical procedure, the State assumes no
obligation whatever to pay for it, just as it does not assume any
obligation to fund any other elective surgical procedure, such as
plastic surgery, dental work, or hair restoration. In any case, the
State is not at all obligated to pay for any procedure that it has no
interest in. In the case of abortion, not even the father has any
legal 'interest' in whether or not his unborn child is slain; how can
the State claim any interest whatever?

Of course, some pro-abortionists make the hideous
Hegelian assertion that an abortion costs more than bringing up a child
to the age of 18 on welfare.

In support of this position, they grossly
exaggerate the costs to society of a welfare child. Typical of such lies
is the June 29, 1977 testimony against the Hyde Amendment offered by
Sen. Charles H. Percy (R.- Ill.), who said that "If we can avoid a
$100,000 cost for a $200 [abortion] investment and make a humanitarian
investment at the same time what sense does it make to say, 'We cannot
afford $200 for this expenditure [for an abortion]?"

Of course, we might use the identical logic to
point out that it would take about the same amount of money ($200) to
take an equally 'unwanted' homeless person off the street and then
euthanize and cremate him. Think of the decrease in welfare payments and
crime that society would benefit from if all of the half-million
'hard-core' homeless were eliminated!

Aside from the extreme callousness of such a
position, the pro-aborts ignore the fact that less than five percent
of all children born into a welfare families will remain on welfare
until the age of 18. They also disregard the fact that the average
period of welfare dependency is two years not eighteen.[3]

In fact, if the problem of paying for abortion vs.
childbirth is examined in terms of the long run, abortion is a very bad
deal for society indeed, as shown below.

Cost of
delivery:
$2,400
Average cost of postnatal
care:
$1,350
Cost of welfare for two years (average
time of child on
welfare):
$2,340

Total cost of delivering
a welfare
baby
$6,090

Cost of Medicaid
abortion:
$250

State and property taxes
paid by
baby during 30 years in the
work force (see Figure 48-2
in Chapter
48);
$79,100

B. IF BABY IS ABORTED

State comes out ahead
($6,090 - $250)
=
$5,840

C. IF BABY IS DELIVERED

State comes out ahead
($79,100 - $6,090)
=
$73,010

This lack of foresight and preoccupation with quick
and easy solutions is a hallmark of pro-abortion 'thinking,' and should
be expected in any debate or discussion. Because they are naturally
shallow thinkers, concerned only with their own comfort, pro-aborts
invariably 'examine' a problem only from the most superficial level.
They apparently cannot be bothered to perform even the most simple
calculations to analyze an issue and discern the truth.

Lack of Need.

Finally, of course, there is no actual need
for the State to pay for abortions. It has been shown that, if a poor
family is confronted with a compelling 'need' for an abortion, they will
find some way to pay for it. Some abortion clinics give discounts or do
abortions 'on time.' And there are actually a number of pro-abortion
groups, like The Abortion Fund, that pay for abortions. Pro-lifers
should ask pro-aborts this question: If you love abortions so much, why
don't you pay for them instead of forcing everyone to do so?

This point was proven conclusively in 1978 when the
Hyde Amendment drastically chopped Federal funding for abortions by more
than 99 percent. If poor women had been unable to obtain abortions due
to this funding cutoff, the total number of abortions in the United
States should have decreased proportionally over the same period.

But such is not the case, as shown below; total
abortions actually increased by eight percent the year Federal
funding was cut off for more than a quarter of a million abortions!

IMPACT ON NUMBER OF ABORTIONS CAUSED BY FEDERAL
FUNDING CUTOFF

Abortions
Funded
By
Total
Year
United
States
Abortions

1977
294,600
1,316,700
1978
2,100
1,409,400
Change
-99%
+8%

The 294,600 abortions that federal Medicaid paid
for in Fiscal Year 1977 cost a total of $86,776,400, or $295 per death.
The following year, the federal government saved more than $85 million
by cutting off most abortion funding.

One might point out that the individual states took
up some of the funding 'slack;' but less than 10 percent of the
abortions previously paid for by the Federal government were
subsequently paid for by individual states.

Maternal Deaths.

Hundreds of women this year will die because they
cannot afford an abortion.

The pro-abortionists, in an attempt to stave off
the Hyde Amendment (which cut off Federal funding for most abortions),
trotted out the desperately tired argument that "thousands of women
would be butchered by back-alley quacks" if Federal funding was
lost.

The actual numbers of maternal deaths due to legal and
illegal abortions in the years before and after the Hyde Amendment are
as follows;

For supporting calculations, see Chapter 59,
"Maternal Deaths Due to Abortion."

Dr. Willard Cates, the pro-abortion head of the
Abortion Surveillance Unit of the Centers for Disease Control, had
predicted that the Hyde Amendment would lead to a doubling of
deaths due to abortion. However, after he was proven wrong by the
statistics, he admitted in the February 16, 1978 Washington Post
that "The 'bloodbath' many predicted simply is not happening ...
our numbers don't show that there has been a mass migration to illegal
procedures."[4]

The Centers for Disease Control confirmed Cates'
observation when it found on the state level that "In Texas,
pregnant, low-income women who do not have federal or state funds for
abortions do not appear to be resorting to illegal abortions to
terminate unwanted pregnancies. These findings are consistent with those
from a national monitoring system which also could not document that the
restriction of public funds for abortion caused a large percentage of
Medicaid-eligible women to choose self-induced or non-physician-induced
abortions. A substantial portion of women who would have obtained a
publicly funded abortion before the restriction are now more likely to
continue their pregnancies to term."[5]

The above figures and quotes demonstrate quite
conclusively that poor women did not begin dying as a result of
the loss of Federal or states funds for free abortions.

For more information on maternal deaths due to
legal and illegal abortions, see Chapter 59, "Maternal Deaths Due
to Abortion."

Additionally, for an account of how ruthlessly the
pro-abortionists will exploit women to try to reinstate abortion
funding, see the story about Frances Kissling and Rosie Jiminez in
Chapter 17 of Volume I, "Anti-Life Propaganda Stories."

Impacts of the Hyde Amendment.

The 'bloodbath' many predicted [as a result of
the Hyde Amendment] simply is not happening ... our numbers don't show
that there has been a mass migration to illegal [abortion] procedures.

Dr. Willard Cates, Centers for Disease Control.[4]

The Trends in Funding.

Until September 30, 1977, the Federal government
financed more than a quarter-million abortions every year (the history
of Federally-financed abortions is shown in Figure 60-1). And then,
pro-lifers won perhaps their most significant victory since Roe v.
Wade.

FIGURE 60-1
HISTORY OF FEDERALLY FINANCED ABORTIONS

Fiscal
Number of
Year Time
Period
Criteria for
Funding
Abortions

1977
10/1/76 to 9/30/77 No
restrictions
294,600
1978 10/1/77 to
12/4/77 Mother's life only
12/5/77 to 10/30/78 Life, rape and incest,
and physical
health
2,100
1979 11/1/78 to 10/30/79
Life, rape and incest,
and physical
health
4,430
1980 11/1/79 to 11/11/79
Life, rape and incest,
and physical health
11/12/79 to 2/18/80 Life and rape and
incest
2/19/80 to 9/19/80 "Medical
necessity"
9/20/80 to 9/30/80 Life and rape and
incest
43,679
1981 10/1/80 to
6/4/81 Life and rape and
incest
6/5/81 to 9/30/81 Mother's life
only
17,983
1983 10/1/82 to
9/30/83 Mother's life
only
528
1984 10/1/83 to
9/30/84 Mother's life
only
293
1987 10/1/86 to
9/30/87 Mother's life
only
75

On October 1, 1977, the Hyde Amendment cut off
funding for all convenience abortions, restricting payment to abortions
for the life and physical health of the mother and rape and incest. The
results were dramatic. In Fiscal Year 1977, before the Hyde Amendment
took effect, the Federal taxpayer was coerced into funding 294,600
abortions. With the new restrictions, the Federal government only paid
for 2,100 abortions in Fiscal Year 1978 a decrease of 99.3 percent!

In Fiscal Year 1987, when Hyde Amendment
restrictions were further tightened to allow funding for abortions only
to save the mother's life, the number of tax-paid abortions declined
even further to 75.

This national trend was soon confirmed by the
abortion figures compiled by the state of Illinois. The state paid for
23,209 abortions in 1976. After the courts upheld a 1977 state law
banning the use of state money for abortions unless medically necessary
to save the woman's life, the total number of abortions paid for by
Illinois dropped to only 12 in 1983.[6]

The total decrease in abortions funded in Illinois
was 99.95 percent.

This is compelling evidence that more than 99
percent of all abortions are performed for reasons of mere convenience
and less than one-tenth of one percent (i.e., one thousandth) of all
abortions are performed to save the life of the mother.

As Federal funds for abortions suddenly dried up,
Michigan, among other states, elected to continue to pay for convenience
abortions with its state monies. However, many states, including Ohio
and Georgia, chose not to continue to slaughter their own babies.

The Real Pro-Abortion Agenda.

In 1990, President George Bush used his veto power
twice to turn back bills that would have restored federal funding for
rape and incest abortions. Predictably, pro-abortionists beat their
breasts and moaned about the "insensitivity" of the President
to women who had been brutalized once already.

The pro-aborts continue to make propaganda hay over
these vetoes. However, as always when dealing with pro-abortionists,
there is a lot more to the story than is first evident.

The true story was revealed in early 1990. Speaking
for pro-abortion Congressman Les AuCoin [D.-Ore], legislative aide Ron
Fitzsimmons acknowledged in a January 1990 briefing to pro-abortion
activists that the real agenda of the pro-abortionists regarding the
Hyde Amendment was to write a very loosely-worded "rape and
incest" exception to the Amendment that was obviously open to
abuse, so that pro-life congressmen would have no choice but to vote
against it and the President would have no choice but to veto it.

The pro-abortionists would then trumpet the
"insensitivity" of the President and the pro-life congressmen
in an attempt to discredit them and defeat them in the November
elections.

As Fitzsimmons said during the briefing session;
"It's hard to ignore the rape and incest victims. But I can speak
for my boss [Congressman AuCoin], he felt that in the long term what we
want is full Medicaid funding. And the only way we're going to get that
is to get the votes in, for people who will vote that way."[7]

Less
Abortion Funding = Less Abortions.

We are told that prohibiting the use of taxpayer
dollars for abortions is discrimination against the poor, because
without such abortion subsidies, poor people could not afford to have
abortions. By that logic, taxpayers could be forced by Congress to pay
for poor people to have faceliftings, hair transplants, expensive cars
and tickets to the Kennedy Center since without such support indigent
citizens could not afford these amenities.

Rep. Eldon Rudd (R.-Ariz.).[2]

Introduction.

More than 30 states have cut off funding for
convenience abortions since Roe v. Wade. Despite curious
pro-abortion claims to the contrary, in every case total
abortions and sometimes pregnancies decreased dramatically.

Illinois.

For example, the state of Illinois paid for all
abortions in 1976. The following year, the state legislature passed a
bill prohibiting Medicaid funding except to save the life of the mother.
The measure was challenged in court, and the measure was not implemented
until 1980. From 1981 to 1983 the state of Illinois paid for exactly 77
abortions an average of 26 per year.

The total number of abortions in the state dropped
from 71,326 in 1977 to 66,613 in 1982, a decrease of seven percent.[6]

Ohio and Georgia.

The loss of funding for convenience abortions
resulted in a dramatic decrease in both pregnancies and abortions
in both Ohio and Georgia, as shown below.

IMPACT ON ABORTIONS AND PREGNANCIES OF OHIO AND
GEORGIA ABORTION FUNDING CUTOFFS

In Pennsylvania, the state Health Department
reported on April 21, 1987 that a total of 65,777 abortions were
performed in 1980. After Medicaid funding was cut off in 1981, abortions
declined for six consecutive years to 51,666 in 1986, a total decrease
of 21 percent.

Michigan.

Nowhere have pro-lifers fought so hard to end state
abortion funding as in Michigan. For twelve consecutive years, the
pro-abortion governor disregarded the wishes of his legislature and the
people and vetoed pro-life bills that would have ended state abortion
funding.

In 1988, voters finally passed a referendum to stop
the state of Michigan from funding 18,500 abortions per year.

The following year, total abortions in the state
dropped 23 percent and births rose only 7.2 percent.[8]

Conclusion.

The most compelling conclusion that can be drawn
from these State case studies is this: when access to free and easy
abortion end, not only do abortions decrease, but pregnancies
decrease as well!

This statistical relationship has always been a
fundamental assertion of pro-life groups. Common sense tells us that,
when the safety net of free abortions is no longer available, women who
use baby-killing for birth control tend to become a lot more careful in
their approach to sex and contraception.

Current
State Funding for Abortions.

What Majority?

The pro-abortion people like to say that the
American people are 'fair' in that they want to fund abortions for poor
women (in reality, most so-called 'poor' women are high school students,
since the person's actual income is used as the poverty indicator).

If this is true, why do only 13 states fund all
abortions?

California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey,
and Vermont all passed anti-funding laws, but state courts ordered them
to continue funding. This means that 42 states have moved to cut off
funding.

Figure 60-2 shows the status of abortion funding by
the 50 states as of January of 1993.

Common sense tells us that, if a state pays for
convenience abortions for 'poor' women, that such women will be far less
likely to be careful about using contraceptives and will use abortion as
birth control.

Many or most of these 'poor' women are high school
girls. Under current law, a person's financial status is determined by
his income. If a high school girl has no income whatever or if she holds
a job that is typical of those held by most high-schoolers she
automatically qualifies for free abortions.

More than a third of the more than 500,000
abortions performed on teenagers every year are performed at taxpayer
expense.

Figure 60-3 shows state-by-state abortion
statistics, including the rate of pregnancies in each state that end in
abortion. The states that fund all abortions for 'poor' women for any
reason are listed in bold face.

The percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion is
a much better indicator of how 'pro-life' a state is, because the raw
number of abortions obtained is heavily dependent upon the state's
population. For example, even though Utah has more abortions than
Vermont due to its greater population, it has less than one-third the rate
of abortions that Vermont suffers.

TOTALS • Entire United
States
1,573,250
25.8%
• 15 States that funded all abortions in 1985
(shown in CAPITAL
LETTERS)
779,150
34.1%
• 36 States that fund abortions only for the
mother's life/rape/fetal
defects
794,100
22.3%

Reference: United States
Bureau of Commerce, Department of the Census. National Data Book and
Guide to Sources. Statistical Abstract of the United States.
1990, 110th edition. Table 102, "Legal Abortions Number, Rate Per
1,000 Women 15-44 Years Old, and Abortion/Live Birth Ratio, By State of
Occurrence, 1980 and 1985." Also Table 105, "Abortions By
State."

Two major conclusions are immediately evident upon
inspection of Figure 60-3;

(1) The rate of pregnancies ending in abortion in
states that fund all abortions for 'poor' women is more than
fifty percent higher that in states that only fund abortions to
save the mother's life, or for rape and incest (the actual
percentages, respectively, are 34.1% and 22.3%).

(2) Thirteen states and the District of Columbia
currently fund all abortions for 'poor' women. Of the fourteen states
with the highest abortion rates, eleven fund all abortions for
poor women.

In summary, then, it is obvious that state funding
for abortions drastically increases the total abortion rate in a state.
Conversely, ending state funding causes a steep decline in the abortion
rate.

The 1978 AGI Study.

When making a point for the pro-life position, it
is always best to use statistics generated by pro-abortionists. In this
manner, the pro-lifer can avoid accusations that he is using 'biased'
information.

A comprehensive 1978 study by the Alan Guttmacher
Institute (AGI), which is the research arm of Planned Parenthood, found
that nationwide, the abortion rate of Medicaid-eligible women was three
times the rate for more affluent women (64.3 abortions per 1,000 women
of childbearing age per year vs. 21.1 per 1,000 per year). In all states
but two North Carolina and Tennessee the rate of abortions to
Medicaid-eligible was higher.[2]

In Alaska, the rate was 5.5 times higher; in
California, the rate was 6.3 times higher. It is very significant indeed
that every one of the states with the highest ratios have a high
minority population.

Not surprisingly, the highest rate of lifetime
abortions per woman among poor women was in the District of Columbia (an
average rate of 4.8 free abortions per woman during the childbearing
years of 15 to 44) and in California (an average rate of 4.4 free
abortions).

The Alan Guttmacher Institute acknowledges that
abortion funding drastically increases the abortion rate; "Thus, in
five states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Kansas and Wisconsin), women
who obtained Medicaid-funded abortions had abortion rates more than four
times greater than those among nonpoor women. In six states (Arizona,
Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and the Dakotas), there were no
Medicaid-funded abortions reported. These figures suggest restrictive
Medicaid policies in the six states and more generous policies in the
five states, even before the Hyde Amendment cutoff."[2]

This disparity is not due to a lack of
access to contraceptives; according to the AGI, in 1976, 72 percent of
married poor women used some form of contraception or sterilization; the
figure for nonpoor women was 79 percent. The AGI claims that the
difference was due purely to the 'fact' that only 29 percent of all
births to poor women were wanted and 74 percent of births to nonpoor
women were wanted. If abortions were factored in, this would mean that
more than 90 percent of poor women's pregnancies are 'unwanted,' a
conclusion that is absurd on its face!

References: Medicaid Abortion Funding.

[1] 'Rabbi' Charles D. Mintz. "Abortion and
the Holocaust: Twisting the Language." 'Religious' Coalition for
Abortion Rights, 100 Maryland Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20002,
telephone: (202) 543-7032. 1987, 24 pages. This booklet is stylishly
written and laid out on only the best paper. It features five short
essays by apostate 'Jews' and phony 'Christians' that are masterpieces
of Doublethink and propaganda. This booklet is mandatory reading for any
pro-lifer who wants insight into just how clever pro-abort propaganda
can be.

[2] Greg J. Duncan. Years of Poverty, Years of
Plenty. Institute for Social Research, the University of Michigan.
1984, pages 77 and 90.

[8] Frontline Updates. "Parental Involvement
Laws." National Right to Life News, October 31, 1990, page
4.

Further Reading: Medicaid Abortion Funding.

United States Government. Medicare and
Medicaid Data. This annual report includes Medicare data for the appropriate year
and tracks trends in enrollees, recipients, use of services, and
expenditures. Also provides a list of Medicare carriers and
intermediaries, including abortionists. Serial Number 017-060-00214-0,
each year, 143 pages. Order by mail from Superintendent of Documents,
United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402, or by
telephone from (202) 783-3238.

United States Government, Department of Health
and Human Services. Directory of Physicians and Suppliers that Accept
Medicare. Information on the 38 Medicaid carriers and the physicians who
accept Medicaid money. Information includes the doctor, company name,
address, and telephone number. Free; published annually in April by the
Health Care Financing Administration, Department of Health and Human
Services, 200 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20201, telephone:
(202) 245-6113.